My Super-powered Diary Chapter 19 Arrival By Amethyst When Maddock Ainsley gets involved in a rescue operation with his unit things go horribly wrong and his life is forever changed. Can the newly minted Merida cope with being a girl and a teenage super hero?

The first thing we did upon arriving in the city proper was to find a place to eat. The place specialized mostly in fried chicken and it had good food and prompt service. The Fairies didn’t even have to hide since the people of Costa Verde were used to some pretty weird shit it would seem. The waitress gave them an odd look at first, but quickly shrugged it off and took our orders. While Fawn and I were devouring my first Hyper-sized meal and the others ate at a more sedate pace Mom called Dr. Edwards to let her and Kendra know that we had arrived in town.

As soon as we had finished dinner we were off to the school for a tour while there was still some daylight left. Kendra and Dr. Edwards were waiting for us outside the gates with our new school ID bracelets that would allow us to get past the security system, even the Fairies had to have one. The school was protected by a large stone fence and a system of buoys that generate an electromagnetic field that won’t allow anyone inside that doesn’t have a school ID bracelet. The EM field was augmented by various high tech and magical security precautions and defenses that Mystech herself had designed and put in place. The bracelets would also act as our individual dorm/room keys and as our school ID by generating a holographic ID card with all personal details, codenames, team affiliation, what dorm we were assigned to, and a holographic photo with the touch of a button.

Things weren’t really anything like I had expected once we got inside the large stone fence and cast-iron gates and onto the school grounds. The grounds were huge and almost all of the buildings looked to be made of mortar bricks and wood that had been whitewashed, with cobblestone streets and paths between buildings with gas streetlamps. “Ummm… I thought this school was supposed to be super high-tech, so why do I feel like I just walked into the 19th century?” Vanessa asked, voicing what had been on my mind as well.

“This town and a lot of the other buildings were built as a set for a movie, but the set was never used. I bought the property for the school at a steal and converted the interiors of the courthouse and town hall buildings into the main Jr. High and high school buildings, but as part of the sale contract the above ground appearance of the grounds must keep to the look of the town, at least on the outside, and a few on the inside too, and Disney retains rights to occasionally shoot scenes in various locations on campus. There was actually a top billing movie shot in part here last year, and more may be filmed in the future, so students must keep up appearances and stay in uniforms for the most part while on ground level, thus the uniforms during school hours. Many students tend to use the underground passages to get around the campus if they want to avoid being seen, as sometimes students can be asked to be used as extras and such,” Dr. Edwards explained carefully.

The courthouse and town hall were very different on the inside, boasting four and three floors respectively, including the basement levels, for classrooms and teachers offices. Some of the other town buildings were completely period both inside and out and a lot of the important stuff was all on the three underground levels: an Olympic sized pool, indoor ice rink, fully equipped gymnasium, two dojos, the emergency medical center, library with computer labs, 3 weapons ranges, a PDE arena, fifty PDE training rooms, several research labs, and a pair of fusion reactors that keep everything running, all connected by the underground passages, transit system, and the maintenance tunnels.

Salmon and Yellowtail Dorm, the two dorms for Jr. High students were both completely underground as well, their entrances hidden in two of the outbuildings near the town hall. Yellowtail, which was the jr. boys’ dorm had a secret elevator going down from the coach house, and salmon, where the twins would be staying, had one hidden in one of the stalls in the stables. Both elevators could only be accessed by someone from that dorm wearing their student ID bracelet.

The five other dorms were located at the eastern end of the property atop a small ridge, behind the school buildings and the clock tower, and all were connected by a cobblestone road. The five manor houses were newly built last year, completely modern inside, but were meant to look as period on the outside as everything else. Four of them all had two floors above ground and another two below ground with each floor housing 30 students per floor, plus a common room for group activities or studying. Two students were housed per room and each floor housed a different grade. The exception to this of course was Starfish dorm, which had five floors, including three underground. It was the coed dorm for us special cases and housed up to 150 students, with each room being single occupant. There is also a common room for group activities or studying on each floor.

Starfish also had steam heating built into the floors, because of dangerous powers and all, while the other dorms all had steam pipes and radiators. In fact, we were told that the whole campus used steam heating. The clock tower building had a classic steam plant inside, or at least it looked classic. It was actually using heat given off from the school’s fusion reactors to generate that steam. The clock tower also housed the mechanical and machine workshop for those students interested in mechanics or engineering.

There were workshops in a lot of odd places though: Electronics in the gaol, chemistry in the Apothecary, magic in the church, biology and genetics on the farm. Yes there as an actual small farm on the northern edge of the property with a large garden, a small orchard, some cows, chickens, pigs and even a pair of horses. After being shown the dormitories and the farm we continued on to the northwest corner of the property where there had been a fake cove constructed for the movie. The cove was a popular place to relax for the students and some spent time surfing there, swimming, or having beach parties.

To the south on the southwest corner of the property was an aged-looking dock with a ratty old fishing shack at the end and a pirate ship docked. “That’s my baby,” Dr. Edwards said, gesturing grandly to the ship.

“Some people build ships in bottles for a hobby, she builds actual ships,” Kendra put in with a laugh.

“I didn’t build it, I restored it from a wreck sunk near Bermuda,” the headmistress clarified. “Now let’s take you all to the Conservatory, or the Grotto as the kids call it, to finish the above-ground portion of the tour.”

The grotto, I liked that name much better than the conservatory, was an actual conservatory, an old fashioned greenhouse made of wood and reinforced glass and partially built into the ridge behind the school buildings. It was a massive building with flowering plants and some vegetables growing along the outer walls, climbing vines were everywhere along the surfaces of the inner walls and ceiling, and cleverly hidden lights kept the place bright. To one side of the back wall that was built into the ridge wall was an artificially constructed waterfall, splashing into a large pool where waterlilies floated lazily.

The floors were wooden, where they weren’t covered in plants, and were kept spotlessly clean with over three dozen large old fashioned wooden tables with padded benches taking up nearly all of the available floor space, with buffet tables taking up the rest. Near the waterfall at the back wall there was a doorway cut into the rock of the ridge, leading back into the hidden kitchens where all the food came from. The acoustics in the place were terrible, but the sights and smells would likely make it an interesting place to eat our meals.

After seeing the Grotto we were all shown to our dorm rooms. The twins were of course sharing a room in Salmon Dorm and would have to take the elevator in the stables, or the underground entrance to get there. Tasha was in Dolphin Dorm and would be rooming with a girl named Daniella Reyes, who went by the codename Loco. Vanessa and I would both have our own rooms in Starfish Dorm, we were neighbors actually on the top floor. After Shu and Mei had unpacked their stuff in their room and Shu had helped Tasha to do the same we all went to Starfish dorm where Vanessa and I unpacked our things for our rooms and Mom and Dr. Edwards got down to work putting our beds together.

While they were working on the beds Kendra gave us all a quick tour of the underground passages. Our student ID bracelets could be used to show our precise locations on a holomap and give directions from that location to any other underground location or surface access elevator. There was also an underground transit system of sorts, though when Kendra had mentioned it I had been thinking trains, not teleportation. She had us all step into a blue sphere and she called out, “Conservatory.” There was a sudden lurching feeling and when she led us out of the sphere again we were beside one of the surface elevators that led to the grounds outside the Grotto. There were a dozen different surface elevators on the school grounds, other than those in the dormitories. On the surface they were hidden in very life-like fake massive redwood trees, just off the cobblestone paths.

By the time we had finished a snack at the Grotto, which had been serving dessert, Mom and Dr. Edwards had my bed ready to go and were nearly finished filling Vanessa’s with water. Vanessa’s bed was basically a huge aquarium and Mom took me to my dorm room to explain how my bed worked. I sighed as we looked over the bed, “It’s a fookin’ princess bed Mom, it ‘as a canopy an’ curtains an’ e’rythin’.”

She sat me on the bed and she pointed to the bed frame, and the four posts that connected it to the frame of the canopy. “I know tha’ ya don’t care fer the bed, but it looks like a girl’s bed an’ I’ve fitted the metal frame with multiple energy detectors an’ shield emitters to contain the energy shield inside the frame. Between tha’, the special mattress an’ pillows, an’ the blankets an’ sheets made from Mithrilex, ya shouldn’t have to worry about destroyin’ anythin’. The room has been completely soundproofed an’ equipped with more energy detectors and shield emitters too, jus’ in case.”

I nodded as I looked at the bed and tried to spot the emitters and detectors on the walls of the room. “I guess I kin see yuir reasons fer it, an’ it’ll be nice tae no’ ‘have tae worry aboot blowin’ anythin’ up, or wakin’ people whenever I ‘ave a nightmare.”

“Once we buy a house we’ll make the same modifications to yuir room there, an’ set up the extra bed. The realtors already ‘ave a few houses fer us to look at, an’ Andy an’ I are goin’ to go tomorrow,” Mom explained.

“An’ jus’ wot dae we dae while you an’ Andy are off house shoppin’?” I asked with a frown.

“Try an’ get used to the school an’ maybe explore the town a bit?” Mom suggested uncertainly. “Kendra offered to introduce ya to some of the students who live here year long. Jus’ try to make the most of it, we’ll have a home soon an’ then you’ll only have to stay in the dorms on school nights.”

It was five days before Mom and Andy got a deal finalized on a house and we were able to move in. During that time we tried to get used to life at the school. Showering and shaving my legs and such every morning in the girls’ shower room for our floor was awkward. Vanessa had seen me naked of course, hell I’d been naked when I’d first met all of my sisters, but being that way in front of strangers was weird now that I was starting to feel like it was my body and not someone else’s. On the good side, being able to swim and having a full gym and the PDE rooms available was really helping me to elevate the morning training sessions for me and my sisters. I had met some of the other people from my dorm, but I didn’t really think of any of them as friends yet. I much preferred to spend my free time with my sisters, Fawn, and the other Fairies.

Speaking of other Fairies, Mei had managed to slip two more over the border. The first was an Asian-looking water Fairy named Silvermist. She was fairly slender with pale skin, long loose dark blue hair, and brown eyes, and Mei had apparently linked her to Vanessa, much to the mermaid’s delight. Iridessa was the second new Fairy, a light-talent fairy who she linked to Tasha. She was smallish with cocoa colored skin, black hair, and brown eyes.

I was still having trouble controlling my emotions and when I was upset that was leading to trouble controlling my powers as well. I had already had one embarrassing incident at the school, though luckily nobody was injured and the damage was easily repaired. That wasn’t my only issue though, as I had been feeling aches and pains and my breasts had been sore, even though my period was almost two weeks away still. Mom of course was worried the moment she found out and brought me in for an immediate medical exam in her new domain the morning of the move.

Our new home was a six bedroom three bath waterfront villa that was within walking distance to the school. That afternoon Vanessa asked me, “So how’d the medical tests go?” We were waiting for a bunch of new furniture to be delivered later that afternoon and were currently unpacking all of the living room furniture from the old place from the pocket dimension that Shu had created to store it. While we were doing that all the pixies were helping the twins to unpack the kitchen stuff and Tasha was helping Mom and Andy with Mom’s lab.

“Mom says tha’ I’m jus’ goin’ through a growth spurt,” I grumbled as I moved the couch out of the pocket dimension and into place. “I’ve gained almos' two inches in height since I Activated an’ I’m almos’ fillin’ those bras tha’ were a bit loose on me afore. Stoopid girl body.”

“I’m glad it’s nothing serious,” the mermaid offered with a sigh.

“An’ ‘ow did yuir exam go this mornin’ ‘Nessa?” I asked, knowing quite well that Mom had wanted to run some tests on her that morning as well.

“Well, Mom was able to figure out what’s causing my constantly elevated hormone levels since I Activated,” she replied with a sad shrug. “It’s my weird mermaid biology. Apparently I have a really odd reproductive system. I don’t get a period like normal girls do. Blood in the water is a bad thing, it can attract sharks and other predators so I don’t shed the lining of my uterus every month, it constantly regenerates itself instead. I’m kind of always primed for getting pregnant, so my hormone levels are higher than normal and instead of once a month my ovaries spit out a new egg every day.”

“Tha’ sounds… messy,” I said with a frown.

“Not really, it’s the shedding of the uterine lining that causes all the mess during a normal period, I don’t even notice the eggs passing through, but it means that only a few birth control methods are going to work for me, so Mom ended up giving me the sex talk today.” My sister did not sound at all happy to have gone through that and she proved it by quickly changing the topic. “I’m glad that we managed to find a place before the twin’s birthday on Tuesday.”

“Aye, an’ now we ‘ave two day’s tae plan the party,” I agreed, letting her get away with the topic change as I hefted a coffee table.

“Nope, three days,” Vanessa corrected. “Remember the twins’ birthday is on the twenty-seventh, but yours is on the twenty-ninth so we’re doing the party on Wednesday so we can celebrate for all three of you at the same time. Silvermist can’t wait for the party.”

“Aye, Fawn cannae wait either, an’ I think tha’ Tink an’ the others prob’ly feel the same way. Fawn’s been tryin’ tae convince me tae invite some o’ our new friends from the campus grounds.”

“D’you mean all the squirrels, birds, and other animals you’ve both been talking to? And the animals on the farm? Oh, and the bunnies in the science lab?” the mermaid asked with a laugh.

“It’s no’ like we’ve ‘ad much tae do lately while stayin’ a’ the school an’ waitin’ on the house,” I snapped, she and Tasha had both been teasing me relentlessly about it every time they caught me doing it. “I ‘ave a new ability, an’ I’m tryin’ tae learn tae control it. It could be useful!” Not that I had to do much for that. “I tol’ ‘er tha’ mebbe we kin invite some o’ the birds or sumthin’ but no’ any o’ the other animals, especially no’ the bunnies, tha’ one ‘as murder in ‘er eyes.”

It took most of the afternoon and evening to get everything unpacked and put in its place, but soon all of the pocket dimensions had been unloaded and by twenty hundred hours all of the rooms, including our new bedrooms and the garage had been set up. I felt much better about things that night as we slept in our new home for the first time. As Fawn and I fell asleep cuddled together I felt like I just might be able to get a good night’s sleep for once. Fate had other plans though as around o’ three thirty Tasha’s mind voice shook me out of my sleep. *Merida! Wake up!*

*What’s wrong Tasha?! Do you know what time it is?!* I sent quickly back once I had looked bleary-eyed at the alarm clock.

*They really did a good job soundproofing your room, how in the hell can’t you hear that?! We need you outside on the beach fast!*

I shook Fawn to wake her, “C’mon Fawn, sumthin’s goin’ on outside.” Then we were both out the bedroom door and the sound hit me like a hammer. There was this loud inhuman shrieking and I put my force field, and my hands, up instinctively to protect my ears. I dashed for the back patio door and onto the beach where my whole family was staring at a pair of lights high up in the sky. The lights were moving in sync, but that was when I noticed that something was horribly wrong. Those weren’t lights, they were eyes, massive glowing yellow eyes attached to a shadowy monstrous-looking behemoth that was emerging from the water, already at least forty feet tall, and it was heading straight for Costa Verde. My jaw dropped and I just stared for a moment before wondering aloud, "Wot the bloody 'ell is tha'?"